


Elements of Language

by mahoni



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: 1000-5000 Words, M/M, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-04
Updated: 2008-06-04
Packaged: 2017-10-03 09:55:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mahoni/pseuds/mahoni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They don't have to talk about it. Which is good, because John isn't so great with words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Elements of Language

They pounded up the stairs at a steady pace, feet clattering on the metal steps. At the top, where the dim stairwell gave way to the airy catwalk, John slowed abruptly, stopped. Ronon overshot him a couple of paces, fell to a walk, and then stood a moment out in the open. He breathed deeply and stretched, arms up, back arching, while John popped the top on his water bottle and took a quick swallow.

There were places like this all along their various jogging routes, places that were still and silent, generally disturbed by no one but themselves. There was no transporter access to this walkway, and there was no use for it, either, that anyone could figure out. The roof of the tower sloped over the walkway in a graceful parallel, made of glass panels clouded milky white; morning sunlight diffused through it in a cool glow. As soothing and peaceful as it was, John wondered -- the Ancients seemed to favor functional art, but maybe in this one spot they had decided to build a place for the sake of beauty alone.

Whatever its purpose, or lack of purpose, it was a nice place. John didn't always stop here, though; sometimes it was Ronon who stopped them. And sometimes they ran through without pause, without taking in the empty, bright silence.

John stopped them today. Not just to rest; he absolutely had an ulterior motive. He had woken up needing this: the quiet, the deserted stillness, and (Ronon knew; he stepped close as John finished drinking, let his shoulder brush John's as he took the water bottle and lifted it to his mouth) a place to breathe, and touch.

Water glistened on Ronon's lips as he pushed the lid back into place; he started to lick it away, like he always did, but John hooked his hand around Ronon's neck and pulled him down, and licked it away for him.

*

The first time, they did it in John's quarters on his too-small bed, and Ronon had asked permission. He picked out the question over the course of a wandering conversation, feeling his way through his shaky -- through no fault of his own, it was a damned complicated issue -- understanding of the Earth (American, military) customs and John's practical application thereof. It had been really, really awkward. It probably wouldn't have happened if they hadn't both been a bit drunk, which allowed Ronon to go there in the first place, and John to treat it like something of a joke, something offhanded and purely accidental. He would have treated it that way anyway, but being drunk (a little, just enough) let him treat it that way _and_ let it happen, too.

The next time they did it, here in the stairwell, Ronon had tried to ask again, and John had said "Goddammit," and flushed and started to walk away. Ronon had...John wasn't sure, actually. Seen the look in his eyes, heard the flinch in his voice, recognized the desire even in the hesitant retreat. Something. And had cut off his own question by catching John's arm and yanking him back, into a kiss so fierce John had tasted blood.

*

He had a chance to gasp in a breath as Ronon broke off the kiss, and then he was spun, throwing out his hands, catching himself against the wall. Ronon pressed him forward; he kicked John's feet apart and nudged his knee between his thighs; grabbed John's wrists and transferred the kiss to his neck as he pushed his hands slowly up the wall.

The wall was cool against John's knees, and then his cheek, and then the length of his body, a shock of chill that he felt through the sweaty cotton of his clothes clinging to his skin. He hissed and shivered, and it made Ronon hum deep in his throat and thrust against him. John felt the cock, hard and hot, grinding against his ass. Ronon gripped John's wrists together in one hand and used the other to shove his t-shirt up, exposing his back to the rougher fabric of Ronon's shirt, and raking his fingers across John's belly to make him hiss again.

This was sort of like cheating. Not that kind of cheating; the other kind. John writhed, trapped by Ronon's weight, at his mercy with his hands pinned above his head -- but not really trapped, helpless. He could say no, break that one-handed grip, fight, but that was the point. That he wouldn't. It was like Teyla making him talk about the fact that he loved them all so much, that he was so much less without them -- drawing him out but not making him actually say it all, instead saying some of the most difficult words for him. It was exactly like that, except with sex, and (he gasped, and gasped, as Ronon's fingers slid beneath the waistband of his pants and brushed the already-swollen head of his cock) _god_ how had he gotten so lucky, that the people he held so close understood he needed that.

He gritted his teeth and shoved back, tried to get enough space between him and the wall to twist his hips, thrust his cock into Ronon's hand, but Ronon growled and shoved him against the wall again.

John groaned. "Ronon --"

Ronon nudged at his neck, biting, nipping, nuzzling roughly with his bearded chin, forcing John's head to the side and back. John fought a moan at each quick sting.

"I want you," Ronon said. His voice filled the stairwell before slipping out into the open air. Not a question, not a statement of intent; he was just tasting the words, tasting John on them, warm in his mouth. "I want to fuck you."

John shivered.

Then the weight was gone from his back and his hands were free, so he braced himself, and started to turn. But as he'd kicked John's feet apart earlier, Ronon suddenly kicked them back together, and in that moment of imbalance, of falling against the wall to keep from falling down, John's sweats and underwear were yanked down, over his straining cock. Ronon pushed a foot between John's legs and shoved the whole mess to the floor.

*

John didn't have a preference, one way or the other, except that it was easier to do it that way than to have to wade through the what ifs and negotiate the exchange... Okay. It was easier because he didn't have to ask and maybe be shot down.

Except. Occasionally.

For example. After Kate Heightmeyer died, and a few people were looking at him with shadows in their eyes, he went to Ronon's room. He'd been cold as ice and his chest had felt like a vast emptiness with his heart racing endlessly in it, and if it had taken more than a count of three for Ronon to open the door he'd have left (run like hell).

Even then -- but in the long moment Ronon had stood in the doorway, entirely unsurprised, John saw something behind the shadows that darkened his eyes too. He wasn't sure what it was, but he'd suddenly felt like an ass for almost _not_ coming here.

So when Ronon stepped back to let him in, John hadn't hesitated to follow, to keep pressing forward, backing Ronon towards the bed and then pushing him down onto it. Neither of them had spoken as John straddled Ronon's lap, explored Ronon's mouth with his tongue and his body with his hands. They hadn't said anything as John had undressed them both. Nothing but held-back moans as John sucked and kissed and stroked his way down Ronon's body.

There were almost words, when he slicked his fingers with oil and pressed them into Ronon's body, but they got lost in soft cries. And as Ronon watched John slick his cock, watched with his fists twisting in the blanket and his hair flared out in tangles around his head, he still said nothing.

But John had seen the question held tightly back, in the lines of tension in Ronon's body and the opacity of his gaze. He had flattened his palms against Ronon's thighs, stroking slowly up to the crease of his hips and over the smooth, hard expanse of stomach and chest (distraction; it worked, Ronon closed his eyes and arched into the touch, drew up one leg and let his knee fall aside, wide open, and, holy fuck) until he was stretched out on top of him, grinding their cocks together.

John was good at evasive maneuvers. Didn't mean he didn't feel guilty about it, though. So, nuzzling the spot beneath Ronon's ear that always made him shudder, John had tried.

"I need you. I -- " he whispered, achingly inadequate. He thought about the horrors his image had wreaked on the people he loved, and hated that the words still could not be pried from him even now. "I need you."

A breathless, frozen moment, and then Ronon suddenly melted against him. And then they didn't speak again for a while. Not as John tasted salty wetness on Ronon's cheek as he brushed his lips against it, not as Ronon shifted onto his stomach and guided John into him. Not until later, when John got on his knees, spent and trembling, and took Ronon as deep as he could into his mouth. With Ronon's hands fisted in his hair, he said it again, and more, soundlessly, speaking the syllables with his tongue and throat until Ronon came.

*

John ground out senseless, angry noises as Ronon teased him with fingers. The little tube was still lost in the pocket of John's sweatpants tangled around his feet, and the gentle friction of one rough finger, the sharper burn of two, three, was undoing him.

Ronon twisted his fingers a little, just enough to get John up on his toes, and he swore and thumped the wall with his hand. "Bastard. God. _Bastard_."

Ronon just said "Mmmm," and pulled his hand away.

Then there was just the wall in front of him, and air around him. And oh, he hated this part. It was so completely _unfair_.

The coolness where Ronon's body had warmed him made him shiver, made him feel how very exposed he was. Fully naked, slicked with sweat; hands clutching the wall by his head; if he tried to go anywhere the pants tangled around his feet would trip him up. He could imagine what he must look like, imagine what it was about him when he was like this that made Ronon always need to step back and see it. He heard Ronon's breath hitch and knew he had finally pulled his own pants open, shoved them down just enough, was stroking himself. John couldn't help it -- he whined, needy and low, and ground his weeping cock against the wall.

A hand on his waist and teeth nipping at his thigh just beneath his ass turned the whine into a gasp. The tongue sliding up along his crack stole the air from his lungs, and he barely noticed Ronon tugging and digging into the clothes at his feet because a hand was spreading his ass cheeks apart, tongue and mouth licking, sucking.

Barely noticed that he'd reached down and was gripping himself, using every thrust back against Ronon's mouth as a chance to jerk desperately on his throbbing cock -- only noticed when Ronon stood and said "No," and pulled his hand away.

He didn't have time to argue (plead) before Ronon's cock jutted against his ass, slipped and slid until the greased length of it nestled against his crack, forcing its way forward.

"Spread your legs."

An abortive flinch against the bunched-up clothes around his ankles made the head of Ronon's cock nudge John's balls, made his own cock jump, made him forget what he meant to do. Ronon kissed the back of John's ear, and then took the lobe in his teeth and tugged. His hand worked around the front of John's hip, dodging (_bastard_) John's cock to cup his balls.

Again, soft, insistent: "Spread your legs."

The cuff of the sweatpants caught on John's shoe; he jerked, uncoordinated by the fingers exploring and the mouth sucking and the cock skimming between his thighs. He managed to pull the pants leg inside out, and the fabric around his shoe made his foot slide farther out than he intended. And because he apparently wasn't off balance enough, wasn't helpless enough, wasn't making embarrassing enough needy sounds as he stood spread and pinned and shaking, Ronon finally wrapped his hand, burning, indulgent, around John's cock.

A smooth, steady stroke, slow, from tip to root, at the same time the crown of his own cock bore down against John's entrance. The next stroke, up, was slow again, as insanely, agonizingly slow as the breaching of his body.

Ronon stretched him, filled him, so unhurried that the hurt never crested, stayed a sweet ache. Pulled back and plunged slowly in again in time with the hand working John's cock.

John could feel Ronon's heart pounding against his back, and abruptly he wanted to take back every time he'd insisted on being circumspect, insisted on not having to say beyond a kiss that he wanted it (loved it, loved), wanted to finally say please, yes, will you, please. But his mouth wouldn't work; he could hardly breathe. All he could do was writhe, spread himself wider, reach back and dig his fingers into Ronon's hips and beg with his body.

Then they were locked together and Ronon paused. He wrapped his arm around John's chest. He clung to him, hugged him tight, and buried his face in John's neck. The sounds he made as he forced John down, harder and deeper onto his cock -- soft gasping, bitten whimpers --

John heaved and cried out silently, jerking against Ronon's hand, against the cock pulsing inside him, as he came.

*

They finished this jog the same way they always finished jogs like these -- at a walk. John's skin was tingling; he could still hear Ronon keening weakly into his shoulder, losing control for the space of a few desperate thrusts which John barely felt through his own unraveling. Could still feel Ronon holding him (both of them) up for a long moment, feel the way they fit, the way that for a few moments it was almost like there was no line where one ended and the other began.

He still wanted to take it back. The fact that he still couldn't was why all of his relationships, ever, had failed. Once in a blue moon he could do it, unlock, reach, speak; but mostly he was frozen in place by the proximity of people he couldn't afford to lose. Needing them to know without making him say it. He knew it looked like avoidance, rejection, obliviousness -- any number of things that frankly made him not worth the trouble. But --

But halfway down the tower stairs, Ronon made a soft satisfied sound and grabbed him and kissed him. Catching a handful of Ronon's hair, John leaned into it and drew it out.

When he finally pulled back, Ronon looked smug. John snorted and rolled his eyes and started loping down the stairs again.

It wasn't that he would call this a 'relationship,' exactly, though whatever it was could just as well fail as anything else he'd tried to do in the past. But he was beginning to think maybe it wouldn't. Because Ronon didn't seem to mind the trouble. Because every time, it felt more and more like he really was looking Ronon in the eye and saying "Yes."

*


End file.
